Tourists gather on the Great Wall outside Beijing, October 3, 2012. Major tourist destinations around China are witnessing travel peaks amid the eight-day Mid-autumn Festival and National Day holidays.

By:Julie MakinenLos Angeles Times, Published on Fri Oct 05 2012

BEIJING—There’s no Mandarin word for “staycation,” but after this week’s holiday horror stories — daylong traffic jams, heaps of trash and restaurateurs gouging customers — the concept may take off here soon.

China is halfway through Golden Week, the fall vacation that starts with National Day on Oct. 1 and sees most businesses, schools and government offices shut down as people venture forth to enjoy some of the majesty of the Middle Kingdom. But when hundreds of millions of tourists head for the same scenic sites, the result can be anything but relaxing.

The Forbidden City in Beijing attracted 182,000 visitors Tuesday, its highest attendance day ever. A day earlier, the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing saw 215,000 people pass through its gates, 10 times the volume of a typical busy day. The Terra Cotta Warriors museum in Xian reported 90,000 visitors over three days, up 25 per cent from last year.

“We saw absolutely nothing but people’s heads,” 42-year-old Guo Zhijun of Henan province told the China Daily newspaper after visiting the Forbidden City. “We wanted our 11-year-old son to learn something from the trip, but we only ended up exhausted.”

The Great Wall and many other sites were similarly packed, thanks in part to a waiver of highway tolls that encouraged drivers to hit the roads. That contributed to extreme congestion.

On Wednesday, thousands of cars jammed two 20-kilometre winding mountain roads in the Lushan area of Jiangxi province. Nearby, on Tuesday, thousands of tourists were stuck on Mount Sanqing past dark as traffic coming down the slope gridlocked. Atop Huashan, a mountain about 800 km southwest of Beijing and not far from Xian, hundreds of police officers were called in to rescue tourists stranded Tuesday after an overloaded cable car system broke down.

Many of those stuck sent out messages on microblogs, including a man from Beijing named Chen Shaojia who posted a series of desperate pleas from Huashan starting at 9:47 p.m.

“Tens of thousands of people are stuck here,” he wrote on Sina Weibo. “There is no explanation from authorities, they won’t reimburse us for our tickets. Now we can’t go home, and we can’t spend the night. My mom has leg problems. I need help to get my mom off this mountain. I will give you lots of money, I beseech someone to come help!”

A few minutes later, he wrote: “Help, help, please hurry up! We are cold, hungry, exhausted, and my phone is running out of battery.” By 10:30, he was reporting that he was carrying his mother downhill on his back, and tourists had broken into stores. “Where are the police? It is so chaotic here,” he wrote. “Everyone is going out of their mind. There is no security or basic safety.” (The next day, he posted an update thanking strangers for helping him make it home.)

Some sightseers complained of inflated prices. A man with the surname Zhou vacationing in Lianyungang city in Jiangsu province said he was shocked after ordering a plate of seafood chow mein to find the waiter asking for about $26.

“When the bill came, I said what is this? I have never eaten such expensive chow mein in my life,” he told China Radio International. Eventually, he was able to haggle the check down to about $10.

Still, in a country where leisure travel — and the means to do it — is a relatively recent development, many sightseers were enjoying their trips.

On Thursday in Beijing, Oleander Gao and nine friends and family members, including her 60-year-old mother and her 75-year-old uncle, were taking a break under some trees on Changan Ave. near Tiananmen Square. The clan had travelled for 12 hours by train from Shaanxi province to the capital to visit famous sites such as the Forbidden City.

Getting around with her elderly relatives was tough because it was hard to find places to sit and rest, said Gao, who is pregnant. But the journey was worth it, she said — especially because her uncle, a farmer, had never visited the capital.

“It’s good here, very good,” he said, smiling broadly. “There are lots of people, but it’s OK.”